Traveling Guide to Peru

Traveling now days has a lot to do with the place you have chosen to go, like for instance if I want to go to Italy, or to Greece, or just to visit my grandparents, it takes a lot of time to get all your thoughts together and try to get the most out of your vacations. That's why before you travel you should get organized and use your internet to take a peek to where you are going to. This web page is about Traveling toPeru, one of the most exciting places in South America. It is a magical place where you can go, not only to have fun but also learn about a different culture and their customs. Peru is internationally recognized for its culture, folklore, culinary, and beautiful views throughout the whole country. When you think about traveling you also think about airplanes, people, kids, luggage, STRESS, but you can make it fun, think about everything, the excitement, wonderful memories that only you can experience. Stop thinking about WORK, the noise, all the kids running around and you trying to have a quiet time, well in Peru, you can sit down and relax, be yourself for once and stop worrying. You can also forget about making dinner, there is a lot of great restaurants everywhere at a very cheap price, and even the elegant restaurants are cheap compared to the ones in the USA, I recommend trying Cebiche,made of different kinds of fish and everything else that's in the sea fauna, that is a good entrée!!!. Peru has a lot to offer to its visitors, the people are so warm especially in the north of Peru, they are well known as "FRIENDLY PERSONS". Chiclayo is the Capital of Friendship, Trujillo is the capital of the eternal spring, and you as a visitor will feel quite at home. You can experience a lot while in Peru, breathtaking views just outside your hotel window, you don't even have to get out of the hotel to appreciate a great view, you can just sit down by the window and feel the connection between you and the nature. Whether you just want to relax or experience some adrenaline going through your body, Peru is the place for you. You will be surprise how you can change and be somebody else by just being in this amazing country, even the food is so good you will never forget it and I bet you will be taking cookbooks with you. Peru has been qualified to be one of the countries with the best food; everybody enjoys having a happy tummy, not happy with that Chinese government decided also to qualify Chinese food in Peru as the best there is. Isn't it amazing? How everything is connected in one little place, even the weather is good, not too cold not too hot, just perfect. The fauna and flora are something beautiful, they have mostly every kind of species, also from the 124 ecologic systems there is, Peru has 91. Qualified as the land of the Incas, Peru gets more than 400,000 visitors every year, and can get up to 1,000,000,000 in time of "fiestas". More than 90% of Peruvians are Catholics and believe in God, since the appearance of Spaniards. There are lots of places to visit while in Peru but the ones you must not miss are Lima, Trujillo, Cajamarco and Cuzco. This last one holds Machupicchu the Lost City of the Incas, for many years until a Yale student came and rediscovered it to the eyes of the world. Peru is dealing with a lot of traffickers; they take all the history and culture out of the country to sell it to the black markets of Europe and USA. The artifacts taken in a clandestine way are worth billions of dollars or euros, but only collectors can pay that kind of money. Lots of artifact collectors are already owners of Peruvian culture, not too far ago, there was a man who took the first Peruvian flag from the museum; this flag was used by Jose de San Martin to proclaimed Peru's independence in 1820. It was sold in Miraflores, a place in Lima where the traffickers go to sell ancient artifacts. It was sold to a man who paid $7,000 for it. After paying for the flag, the collector returned it to Peruvian government. No Peruvian would have ever done that for its country. Hopefully there are still some that believe in honesty. Here is tip # 1 for traveling in Peru: "Never ever buy real artifacts in Peru, because they will stop you at the airport and charge you for trafficking, with a very high fee and 4-5 years in prison." However, they sell souvenirs most of the time, and that's safe. Remember if the price is too high you can always work it down!!!!!!!

More Info

Peru

Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America, bordering Ecuador and Colombia to the north, Brazil to the east, Bolivia to the south-east, Chile to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

In addition to being known as the cradle of the Inca empire, Peru harbors many indigenous ethnic groups, making it a major historical and cultural site.

Peru's territory is divided successively into regions (25) (Spanish: regiones; singular: región), provinces (180) and districts (1747).

The Lima Province is located in the central coast of the country, is unique in that it doesn't belong to any of the twenty-five regions. The city of Lima is located in this province, which is also known as Lima Metropolitana (Lima Metropolitan Area).

Until 2002, Peru was divided into 24 departments (departamentos) plus one constitutional province (Callao), and many people still use this term when referring to today's regions, although it is now obsolete.

Introduction

Peru

Peru is South America's third largest country, covering 1,285,215 sq. km., and can be divided into three distinct geographic regions. The best known of these is the central high sierra of the Andes, with its massive peaks, steep canyons, and extraordinary pre Columbian archaeological sites. The Andes are still one of the world's most unstable mountain ranges, with frequent earthquakes, landslides, and flash floods. Despite such instability, the Andes are also the site of the most fascinating pre-Columbian cities of South America-like the great city of the clouds, Machu Picchu.

The Andes are by no means the only region to visit in Peru. Also of great interest is Peru's narrow, lowland coastal region, a northern extension of the Atacama Desert. Although the Atacama is generally known as the most arid region on the planet, the climate along Peru's shores is made cooler and less dry by La Garuùa, a dense fog created by the collision of the frigid waters of the Humboldt Current with the heated sands of the Atacama. Lima, Trujillo, and Chiclayo, three of Peru's major population centres, are located along this coastal desert.

Peru's third great region is the dense forest that surrounds the headwaters of the Amazon beneath the eastern slopes of the Andes. This part of the country is so inaccessible that only the most adventurous and intrepid travelers should attempt to penetrate its mysterious emerald depths. In fact, the region's capital of Iquitos, a city of 400,000, is accessible only by air or by boat up the Amazon.

Peru's climate varies considerably by region, although January through March tends everywhere to be the wet season. The coastal areas, which are quite hot and humid during those months, are cooled during the rest of the year by La Garuùa. The fog doesn't penetrate very far inland, however, and the western side of the Andes are very clear, warm, and dry for the greater part of the year. As one moves up into the mountains, night-time temperatures become considerably colder. The eastern slope of the Andes, like the Amazon basin, experiences very heavy rainfall during the wet season, which extends from January all the way through April.

Peru Culture & People

Since pre-Columbian times Peruvians have been divided by nature. From the arid deserts of the coast, the Andean Sierra rises up to 19,700 feet. The highlands comprise about a quarter of Peru's territory, but are home to about half of Peru's population. This mountain mass poses major problems for development and integration into a single society.

The result is dramatic regional diversity, and considerable inequalities in services and living standards. Health, education and law enforcement programs are unevenly distributed across Peru.

At first sight, Peruvian culture may seem brutally divided between indigenous and colonial societies - the mountains and the city. Elite white creoles trace their bloodlines back to the Spanish Conquest in 1536. Like generations before them, most live in Lima, where a European visitor will feel a comfortable familiarity in the cafes and supermarkets.

On the other side, rural communities now also aspire to ownership of televisions and blue jeans but this comes into conflict with their traditional cultural values. The people of the Andes are maintaining the traditional practices of their ancestors in a rapidly changing world. Their livelihood continues to be based on family-owned fields or charkas which are farmed by hand or with the assistance of draft animals.

The social organization of communities in the Andes differs greatly from that of Europeanized creole culture. Work, marriage and land-ownership are centered around a complex extended family organization called the ayllu in Quechua which dates back to at least Inca times. One of the main functions of ayllus is to organize reciprocal work exchange.

Over the past 400 years, there has been a long process of inter-cultural mixing, creating the mestizo of part-American Indian, part-European heritage. Today the majority of Peruvians would fall into this category. In Peru, you can become mestizo not only by birth but by choice. Peruvian social divisions can thus be said to be not so much racially as culturally defined.

The Andes have two large ethnoliguistic groups: the larger of the two speaks Quechua; the smaller group speaks Aymara and is settled around Lake Titicaca and also in neighboring Bolivia. Beyond these global distinctions, other complexities arise. There are "white" ethnic groups called the Morochucos of Pampa Cangallo who have light-colored eyes and hair and speak Quechua.

Continue.......

Peru Culture & People

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The misti, the dominant social class in the Andes, may speak Quechua and share other cultural traits but enjoy access to education and the luxuries of the modernization. Meanwhile in the Amazon jungle, there are at least 53 ethnolinguistic groups, although only around 5 percent of Peru's population live in the Selva (the tropical region east of the Andes in the jungle).

Due to its New World history, Peru also enjoys a rich cultural diversity. Up to the 19th Century, landowners brought in African blacks to serve as slaves on their haciendas and frequently used them to repress the local Indians. Between 1850 and 1920, Chinese and Japanese laborers provided the hands and backs to build railways over the Andes and farm the land where there was a scarcity of labor.

A large majority of highland people live a marginal and impoverished existence and are removed from the modern benefits of the national economy. While retaining an unchanged loyalty to their ancestral heritage, so well identified to the outside world through their bright homemade costumes, the poor of the Andes are nevertheless equally eager to share in the luxuries of a "modern" lifestyle which includes education, electricity, sewage and running potable water. But rather than improving, the economic conditions of these communities is deteriorating, leading to massive urban migration.

Peru's middle class is the most difficult to define. In the 1970's, with the integration of modernization, the middle class grew into its own, both in Lima and in provincial cities. This growth was due to the diversification of the economy and to the expansion of the Peruvian state, both as a purveyor of public services and as an entrepreneur. During this period, roads penetrating into the Sierra and the Amazon Basin started to link the hinterland with Lima and important coastal markets. Mass communication began to reach out to new audiences.

Today, Lima, the capital has come to represent all that went wrong with Peruvian development. One city now concentrates most of country's services and other resources, but they are grossly inadequate to sustain its 8 million inhabitants.

A striking feature of contemporary Peruvian society is the massive scale of the informal economy. The decay of the national economy has led to an abundance of traditional market street trade and bartering at market stalls as an integral part of daily life. Ambulantes (street vendors) can be found on every corner selling a huge varie

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